“Much gratitude you have shown,” replied Lorna, “to Master Ridd, for all his kindness and his goodness to you.  Who was it that went down, at the peril of his life, and brought your father to you, when you had lost him for months and months?  Who was it?  Answer me, Gwenny?”

“Girt Jan Ridd,” said the handmaid, very sulkily.

“What made you treat me so, little Gwenny?” I asked, for Lorna would not ask lest the reply should vex me.

“Because ‘ee be’est below her so.  Her shanna’ have a poor farmering chap, not even if her were a Carnishman.  All her land, and all her birth—­and who be you, I’d like to know?”

“Gwenny, you may go,” said Lorna, reddening with quiet anger; “and remember that you come not near me for the next three days.  It is the only way to punish her,” she continued to me, when the maid was gone, in a storm of sobbing and weeping.  “Now, for the next three days, she will scarcely touch a morsel of food, and scarcely do a thing but cry.  Make up your mind to one thing, John; if you mean to take me, for better for worse, you will have to take Gwenny with me.

“I would take you with fifty Gwennies,” said I, “although every one of them hated me, which I do not believe this little maid does, in the bottom of her heart.”

“No one can possibly hate you, John,” she answered very softly; and I was better pleased with this, than if she had called me the most noble and glorious man in the kingdom.

After this, we spoke of ourselves and the way people would regard us, supposing that when Lorna came to be her own free mistress (as she must do in the course of time) she were to throw her rank aside, and refuse her title, and caring not a fig for folk who cared less than a fig-stalk for her, should shape her mind to its native bent, and to my perfect happiness.  It was not my place to say much, lest I should appear to use an improper and selfish influence.  And of course to all men of common sense, and to everybody of middle age (who must know best what is good for youth), the thoughts which my Lorna entertained would be enough to prove her madness.

Not that we could not keep her well, comfortably, and with nice clothes, and plenty of flowers, and fruit, and landscape, and the knowledge of our neighbours’ affairs, and their kind interest in our own.  Still this would not be as if she were the owner of a county, and a haughty title; and able to lead the first men of the age, by her mind, and face, and money.

Therefore was I quite resolved not to have a word to say, while this young queen of wealth and beauty, and of noblemen’s desire, made her mind up how to act for her purest happiness.  But to do her justice, this was not the first thing she was thinking of:  the test of her judgment was only this, “How will my love be happiest?”